Dr. Ed Scarbrough is the US CODEX Manager. He is an employee of the USDA and his office is the official point of contact for CODEX in the US. Delgates to CODEX Committess and the CODEX ALIMENTARIUS Commission (CAC) meeting in Rome this July take their direction from Dr. Scarbrough.

On June 9, 2005 the US CODEX Office held a public hearing on CODEX in Washington, DC.

The Natural Solutions Foundation was there and addressed the hearing, reminding the US CODEX Office that the (Emergency Citizen’s Petition) , submitted on June 1, 2005, requires the United States’ CODEX policy (and its instructions to the American CAC Delegation) to conform not to the desires of CODEX or the impact of international trade on economic indicators, but to US law! And US law mandates that the US not harmonize with any international standard or regulation which violates US law.

The CODEX Vitamin and Mineral Standard, set for ratification this July absolutely violates US law! The legislature it would violate is called the Dietary Supplement Health Education Act (DSHEA) and was signed into law in 1994. It classifies supplements, nutrients and herbs as foods and, as such, these are not to be limited by upper limits of any sort (there are no upper limits on food nutrients).

You can help. Citizen’s petitions allow people to join in the petition by sending a letter saying that is what they want to do. Every letter is counted, in the weird algebra of politics, as equivalent to the opinion of 13,000 other, less action-oriented people. Just think, if 1000 people send letters joining in, then, effectively, 13 million people are saying “obey the law, Oh government of mine! Obey the law!”

Suppose 10,000 people send that fax. You do the math!

Now, here’s the secret: my Washington buddies tell me that it is very unusual to be given a slot on the program at a hearing like this. Could it be that we were able to get onto the program because of the Citizen’s Petition? That it really has attracted signficant attention? We think so. So please, go to the Citizen’s Petition and follow the easy instructions to add your name to it.